UMECUnited Mining Exploration Commission: A group of friends playing JumpGate-- "a MMORPG that launched smoothly, breaks from fantasy character setting, emphasizes PvP, and is the first persistent world space simulator that nobody talks about." ~Scorch

Assault Ships, Covert Ops Ships and Interceptors are enhanced versions of various basic frigates. Assault Ships are meant to "spearhead" battles and attack other frigates - they've got special armor and shields that lets them laugh off shots from even a Battleship, with a bit of module tuning. Other frigates generally find them very difficult opponents, because they tend to carry a lot of firepower, to boot.

Interceptors are the game's best tacklers, bar none - they can rush up to and warp-scramble and statis web a ship in an eyeblink. They also carry a fair amount of firepower and they're still somewhat sturdier than basic frigates, but they must rely on speed to survive.

Covert Ops vessels are specialty ships - the actual CovOps frigate is a good covert scout (good for, among other things, acting as a mobile warp-in point for your battlegroup), and the Stealth Bomber does have its uses in indiscriminate terrorism (although it isn't as good as it could be.)

Heavy Assault Ships (AKA Heavy Assault Cruisers) are pretty much the last word in mobile vehicular asskicking. They combine everything good about Assault Ships AND Cruisers into one very sexy package. They don't pack the big guns of the Battleships, but they tank harder than Battlecruisers and arguably pack more firepower. Unfortunately, they're also incredibly expensive because of the amount of Morphite required - they're usually tied with Level 1 Battleships on the market in price. Each race gets an "Unk Ubertanker" ship and a "hey that's neat" ship in this category (which tends to be the more powerful of the two - the Amarr Zealot is a crazy laserboat, the Gallente Ishtar fires drones like they're artillery cannons, the Minmatar-Thukker Vagabond really is the cruiser that thinks it's a frigate, and the Caldari Cerberus is like the Caracal but with everything flat-out sexier.)

There're also Logistics Cruisers that are ace with remote repairers and boosters, but they're such obvious targets that they don't get used much.

Brej Donierik wrote:

The Assaults and Heavy Assaults have better defenses than the regular frigates (and cruisers, respectively), because they have built-in resistances.

Interceptors can achieve extreme speeds, and thus become better than regular frigates at tackling (zooming to the enemy battleship and warp jamming / webifying it so it can't move).

Covert OPS ships can install cloaking devices, making them well suited for a variety of scout and/or sentry roles (sitting by a gate, invisible, keeping tab on who comes and who goes).

The regular ships, in addition to "bigger is better" (which usually applies to PVE, and not always to PvP) can be better suited for certain things:

Frigates, with their speed, are ok for tackling, and since they're cheap, also ok for showing newbie pilots what fleet battles are all about.

Cruisers are mostly used for mining operations in Empire, agent missions, and when you simply can't afford to lose a battleship. They lose the speed advantage that frigates get, and also don't have the armor and resilience that battleships have, so they're kind of the worst of both worlds.

Battleships are sometimes used for mining (7 mining lasers, after all, plus drones), or for transport (valuable BPO's), and of course for fighting other battleships. Packs of frigates can pose a problem to a battleship.

To make your life a bit easier I copied something from our forums about racial ships, have a look at it and see what you like most.

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The race you shoose for your character really doesn't have any influence in anything, the only thing is that the starting attributes will differ somewhat, not neccesarily better or worse although Gallente always has high charisma.

It's about the ships, this makes the difference. The good thing is, you can fly all ships, as long as you train for it so a caldari pilot like me can fly gallente ships no problem, he just has to buy the skillbooks for it. Now for the ships, because there IS a difference amongst those.

- Amarr; Laser users, medium speed, do well at medium range, less good at short and long range, armor tankers so good for PVP, very low amount of midslots, massive high and low slots. weapons don't use ammo. Can tank very well. Due to focussed design no need to diversify skills so will work really well really quickly. Needs good cap managing skills to make it work properly, but that's easier to attain than having to train for different weapontypes. Weapons do mostly shielddamage which isn't so good for PVP as most PVPers tend to be armor tanking.

- Minmatar, projectile and missile users. High speed, VERY good at short range, VERY good at long range, not so good at medium range. Can use both shield as armor tanking so needs a lot of skills to work properly, they're made for PVP, PVE is not so good as tanking isn't up to par with others. is sucky in the beginning but once you get the skills down they start to shine. very balanced slotting so no cookiecutter setups, this means that in PVP you can suprise someone by thinking outside the box. Good armor damage and can choose damatetypes really easy due to difference in ammo and missiles.

- Caldari, hybrid and missile users, low speed, not good at short range, good at medium and long range, shieldtankers so not too good for PVP but are the PVE gods, missile+shield=easy PVEing on low skills, have the possibility for ECM but only useful in PVP, massive midslots but are needed for tanking, low amount of low slots. Both shield and armor damage, can use extra damagetypes due to missiles.

- Gallente, hybrid and drone users, medium speed, VERY good at short range, do well at medium and can do good at long range. Armor tankers with a balanced slotting so no real cookiecutter setups. work GREAT in PVP, can do well in PVE but lack in fitting and cap, with good skills this will be overcome and they really start to shine. Good shield and armor damage, can use extra damagetypes due to drones.

The races themselves dont matter apart from how your guy looks and roleplay reasons. What matters is the ships ;)

Galente armor tank, use drones, and hybrid ammo.
Amarr armor tank, use lasers, and lots of gold.
Caladri shield tank, use missiles and hybrid ammo, and theres too many.
Minmatar use projectile ammo, armor and shield tank, use decent amounts of drones, and have ugly ships.

Pros and Cons depends, theres no uber ship or setup for everthing, it depends what is happening at the time.

Celvice Klein wrote:

Amarr: their weapons don't use ammo, so they can go deep into 0.0 space without needing to resupply. Laser weapons drain cap quickly, though, and that can limit how well they can tank. Would be my last choice if I was to make a new character.

Gallente: Can tank quite well, can use railguns well for long range, and have drones for close-range combat (or long range if you really want). Some good Electronic Warfare options.

Caldari: Probably the best for PvE combat (running missions). Specialize in missiles which are uber-win for PvE and decent for PvP. Also good for E-War. Most people end up training to use Caldari battleships eventually, just 'cause the Raven is made of win.

Minmatar: Jack of all trades, master of none (have the fastest ships, though). Use projectile weapons which require no capacitor energy, allowing them to fit modules that have a penalty to capacitor (eg. shield relays and mircowarp drives) without much adverse effect. Possibly the best small ships out of the races (Interceptors/Assault Frigates). To use a minnie ship well you need skills in guns, drones, missiles, shield tanking, armour tanking, and just about everything else. Because they take so many skills to use, I would recommend not starting as minmatar, but training for their ships once you're more advanced.

The above is my personal opinion, and many will likely disagree. What I did when I first started was create a character of each race and try it out for a few weeks. 'course I did that many years ago (exodus, as I recall) so much has changed since then.

The Amarr race is pretty much the only one that really embraces symmetry as a design philosophy. Unfortunately, they coupled this with an over fondness for orangish yellow.

The Minmatarr race has quite a few symmetrical, or close-to symmetrical ships. And they can be considered quite pretty for those that find walks through junkyards and scrapheaps to be romantic.

Gallente and Caldari ships both seem to abhor symmetry.

Caldari ships are very angular, as though curves were some kind of anathema to the designers. They are also predominantly gray with a wishy-washy red stripe.

Gallente ships are conversely curvaceous, as if molded out of clay or designed in a lava-lamp. They do, however, seem to have the most diverse color schemes. Though most ships have greenish gray hues.

Caleb Paine wrote:

Going for interceptors right from the start is, however cool, probably not the best way to do things, for several reasons;

- their use is quite limited
- they are very skill and experience intensive
- they cost a lot (to lose)
- you can't really make money with them

To go to war you need cash, equipment and experience, in abundance. So you're better off going for 'normal' ships first making sure you make cash, join a PVP corp and learn the trick of the trade and get into a position where using a 20 mil ship is actually useful and of no consequence might you lose it.

Also note that Caldari ships by design aren't the best PVP ships, they're geared for shield tanking and long range standoffs, which almost never happen in small gang/solo combat.

The other 3 races are more geared for PVP (and thus do less good for missionrunning).

Minmatar are the skirmish fighters, fast ships, less defense, good damage and they have the 'hidden bonus' of not needing cap to fire their weapons which in a PVP situation can be a deciding factor.

Amarr on the other hand use tons of cap but then they have more cap to play with too, people say they're gimped but that doesn't stop amarr pilots from frying others real easy. Their ship design and philosophy are simple and to the point, besides you'll use lasers!!!!!! doesn't get any cooler than that.

Gallente is the best mix of all, they pwn in close combat, they have a lot of toys to play with and have several very good ships. It's just that it's the cookie cutter thing to do.

I'd either opt for minmatar or amarr, yes the reaces people say are gimped, but then people say a lot of things on the retardweb. You're best off reading the ship playerguide sticky in this forum. It'll help you a bit.